Ancestral Roofs

"In Praise of Older Buildings"

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Father Knows Best

Don't these houses just conjure contentment and security? These lovely homes in Belleville's Old East Hilll are typical of the Colonial Revival style popular in the 1940's and 50's which channeled Cape Cod profiles and Georgian symmetry. The style was as pervasive then as today's replica craftsman styles with gables stacked on gables are now.

Bridge Street East, Belleville

I had a doll-house once which recreated the style for young housewives-in-training. These doll-houses were very popular in the 40's and 50's. Made of steel with rolled edges, brightly painted exterior emulating the real thing pictured above. Inside, curtains, drapes and fireplace were stencilled onto the walls, floor coverings just so. Tiny plastic furniture brought out the decorator in me - in limited measure.

And if neo-Georgian doesn't take you back, perhaps the little Cape Cod dollhouse on Dianne's site will.

Neat, orderly, well-bred. Not at all like the old house we grew up in. A rambling old 1860's/1900 frame farmhouse, with make-do upgrades as budget permitted. A woodhouse/summer kitchen with rough edges, old parts of the house unused but for storage. Not the perfect Father Knows Best home in a leafy urban setting. But then...I just watched a video of the original show's intro. Cringe-making. Life wasn't like that, either. It was real.

2 comments:

I'm with Brenda. That image of the dollhouse took me way, way back, and what a pleasant trip it was! I never had such a thing myself, but I do remember visiting other girls who did. As you say, it was such a neat and tidy and perfect contrast to the rambly old houses we lived in. Something to dream on … until we got a little older and realized the the old rambly houses were best …

Great Architecture quotes

"The sins of the Architect are permanent sins" Frank Lloyd Wright, 1914

"In the end, we conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." ~Baba Dioum, Senegalese poet (Posted in January on the ACO Acorn online)

"It is forbidden to disfigure external decorations on private buildings through modern additions and to spoil historic buildings in an important town out of avarice and the desire to make money." - Theodosius, Valentinianus, Arcadius (309 A.D.)

"It has been said that at its best, preservation engages the past in a conversation with the present over a mutual concern for the future" - William Murtagh (1988)

"Preservationists are the only people in the world who are invariably confirmed in their wisdom after the fact". - John Kenneth Galbraith (1979)

"A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines" - Frank Lloyd Wright

"Architecture is the art of how to waste space" - Philip Johnson

"Architecture is frozen music" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Photo Gallery

"Caught in passing"

Striker/Walmsley House 1868

Albert Street beauty

Fort William Collegiate Institute - "they don't make 'em like they used to"